Real-Life Weirdness

[Anaraxes]

Grease Devil panic grips rural Sri Lanka

Panic over nighttime assaults blamed on "grease devils" has struck across rural Sri Lanka, leading to the deaths of at least three people this week, prompting women to stay indoors and men to arm themselves, police and local media said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...77B46V20110812

Monster hunters from around the globe converge on the scene to investigate -- and slay.

"There is no grease devil as such. It is a human among us with an ulterior motive of stealing or to engage in some illegal activities," police spokesman Prashantha Jayakody said.

Sure, the authorities tell us it's all natural, just humans, criminal elements. We've heard that one before.

[Luke Bunyip]

This is not weird, but it offers the possibility for weirdness. Namely, if rats did not carry the Black Death, what did?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

This is not weird, but it offers the possibility for weirdness. Namely, if rats did not carry the Black Death, what did?

Humans, of course. Worse than rats, really :)

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Humans, of course. Worse than rats, really :)

Bruno. You are being way to rational for my liking :P

However, given my children's preference for rats as pets, a bit of me has to agree with you. I am suspecting that the rats were merely a scapegoat.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Humans, of course. Worse than rats, really :)

It's one of the few benefits to being a shut-in. Avoiding all those nasty diseased humans means I get sick once every few years at the most.

[Xenarthral]

Secret underground rooms found under Fateh University, Tripoli, Libya.
Technically not all that weird in itself, at least not compared to some
of the things already mentioned. But the potential...

[Lord Carnifex]

Originally Posted by Xenarthral

[
Technically not all that weird in itself, at least not compared to some
of the things already mentioned. But the potential...

Sometimes weirdness is where you find it. I ran a one shot adventure based on the news story that U.S. forces in Iraq had dispatched troops to guard certain archeological sites, even before the oilfields were secured. Sounds relatively innocuous by itself, but in a Call of Cthulhu context, it takes on a much more dire aspect.

Now, I'm not saying that the whole invasion was a pretext to keep What Lies Beneath dormant, but you'll have to make up your own mind.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Bruno. You are being way to rational for my liking :P

I dunno, if you stop and think about it, actual disease is basically scarier than any metaphor that stand in for disease. For example, you often see zombies stand in for disease, but you can at least shoot a zombie in the head. With actual disease, all you can do is shut yourself away, rocking back and forth while the world around you dies.

I imagine the reason you don't see realistic epidemics depicted in most horror is that it's a little TOO bleak. At least you can fight a monster (You can fight plague too, but it's too slow and too technical to be of interest to a general audience).

[Anaraxes]

Iran is cracking down on squirtguns and their owners. Remember, if squirtguns are outlawed, only outlaws will have squirtguns.

Hard-liners see the water fights as unseemly and immoral, breaking taboos against men and women simply mixing, much less dousing each other with water and playing in the streets.

But authorities see a darker hand as well, worrying that the gatherings could weaken adherence among young people to Iran's cleric-led Islamic rule or even build into outright protests against the ruling system.

"This is not simply a game with water. This act is being guided from abroad," Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi said.

State TV has aired statements by some arrested in previous water fight crackdowns, admitting they were motivated by "foreign invitations."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT

The Super Soakers are perhaps being smuggled in by those specially-trained spy squirrels Iran reported back in 2007.

It's certainly weird, though if you tried to put this in one of your games anywhere this side of IOU, you'd probably have players walking out because of the unrealistic silliness.

[William]

The Smith Mansion.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/201...205-PROUD.html

The kind of house you get when you have time, money, lots of wood, and vague notions of architecture and carpentry.

It ate its creator, too. "Wind blew him off a balcony" is the story for the mundanes. But just look at those spires, and the alignment with the moon. Clearly a half-finished summoning device, or something worse.